At Fouts Park, a bench with two plaques and a new tree reminds Bellingham of the murder of George Floyd and the many lives lost to systemic and systematic racism.
On Nov. 6, members of the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship (BUF) gathered at Fouts Park after Sunday service for a memorial bench dedication and ribbon-cutting celebration. The bench holds two plaques: one reads “George Perry Floyd Jr.,” and the other, “Black Lives Matter.”
Under BUF’s social and environmental justice committee is the Black Lives Matter action team.
“We recognized, as a church, there was something we could do to say Black lives matter,” said Naomi Gary, an action team member. “When we asked (Bellingham City Council member Kristina Michele Martens) what can we do … she said nobody was acknowledging or memorializing the George Floyd anniversary of his murder, which was May 25.”
On May 25, BUF, under Marten’s guidance, held an event at Fouts Park that raised over $2,000 which, in partnership with Bellingham Parks and Recreation, was used to plant a tree and build a bench.
“The reason that you put in something permanent is that we don’t want to forget,” Gary said. “We don’t want to forget what happened to George Floyd, we don’t want to forget what happened to Emmitt Till.”
Before walking to Fouts Park, BUF gathered for its weekly service. After hearing from Rev. Paul Beckel and singing songs, Michele Martens spoke to the crowd about her experiences and how people can affect their community.
While telling the crowd of her experience as Bellingham’s first Black female City Council member, beginning January 2022, and growing up learning that her skin is a problem, Martens emphasized that one cannot learn about the oppression of black people from just a single person.
Martens explained that for government to truly recognize racism as a problem, “You have to have them declare it as an issue,” she said. On Sept. 27, 2021, the City Council made a resolution affirming racism as a public health crisis.
There are many groups in Bellingham working for a more just future, but they lack communication amongst themselves, Martens said. The City Council heard a proposal for the creation of a county-wide racial equity committee on April 26, 2021. These efforts would include the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County and the Chuckanut Health Foundation.
“Make sure where you’re pouring your time and heart is actually contributing to solutions,” Martens said. She offered to sit with whoever asked and help them find where their power lies and where they can help the community.
Martens then introduced Isaac Gammons-Reese, a 17-year-old Bellingham resident, who had prepared a speech for the crowd.
Gammons-Reese spoke of intersectionality, feelings of being “too white” and his experience being black in a predominantly white community. He expressed a “striking feeling of loneliness that comes from being a Black man in America.”
“George Floyd’s murder taught me and every black person that that cop’s knee could have been on my neck,” he said to the crowd.
Winter Bee, another teen resident of Bellingham, performed the song “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday. The haunting tune tells the story of Black men and women that were lynched in the South.
“Southern trees bear a strange fruit. Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,” she sang.
Bee also attended the fundraising event on May 25.
“I wanted to come back and renew the message that things are still happening, but we are moving in a direction that change is happening,” Bee said.
Bee hopes more reminders can exist in Bellingham. She has an idea of creating a whole wall covered in art by Black artists.
For the bench’s reveal and ribbon-cutting, Gary handed off a pair of scissors to Bee and Gammons-Reese. She said the scissors have a long history as they used to belong to her Jewish grandfather, who fled Europe during in 1912 — an example of oppressed people coming together, she said.
At end of the event, the crowd held hands in a large circle and sang one last song together. Afterward, attendees milled about, chatting and connecting with Martens and the young speaker and singer.
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated George Floyd’s middle name. The story was updated to reflect this change at 1:41 p.m. on Nov. 7. The Cascadia Daily News regrets the error.
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated when Gary’s grandfather fled Europe. Gary’s grandfather arrived in the U.S. in 1912. The error was updated at 2:03 p.m. on Nov. 7. The Cascadia Daily News regrets the error.
